What can I say? I love finesse armies... So here's the cast and crew of my jovial batch of pirate ninjas...

The ninjas of this pirate crew...



(same shelf, overlap on the Raider)



The "hulls" on display, with a couple of different angles..


After painting so much green on my Tau, I had to switch to something lighter and warmer for these guys. The armor on the warriors and wyches will be something to stand out in contrast from the bone and bloody sails, but that is still in development phase.

Close ups on the squads (with their transports) will be added in when they start receiving paint. The one Raider that has more than foundation on it is at about a 70% solution, with another layer of bleached bone to clean up the wash, highlighting, detailing, and squad designation to go.

Also, the non-Xenos influence... Cue "Flight of the Valkyries"...


..I might have a fascination with fast-ish skimmers and highly-mobile forces. Maaaaaaybe...

I think adding close ups of the near finished skiff would really add to your thread. I can't really take anything from a far out shot of a bunch of dark eldar.

Don't take it as an insult I just would appreciate some close ups of the painted skiff. It looks like someting straight out of starwars. Can't wait to see more.

The two sleekish smaller shapes in the middle of several of those pictures are some kit-bashed Venoms. I can provide some direction on how I made them, and if I get the conversion urge again real soon, in-progress pictures.
The parts came from several kits... The main body is from an Eldar Viper with the lower "hull" being one of the spare Reaver Jetbike noses. The platform on the back was made from Wood Elf Gladeguard bows and the inner rear hatch doors of the Tau vehicles. The extra blades on the winglets are from Raider kits, as are the chain-snares underneath.
The splinter cannons were made from shuriken cannons, with the hoses and ammunition belts cut off, and the muzzle of a disintegrator cannon glued underneath to represent the poisonous ammunition source and spiky bits from the ever-spiky bitz box that four raiders and twelve reavers will leave you with. For the weapon mount, I just glued the Viper's weapon mount on to the underside of its normal mounting point.
The hobby saw saw a lot of use in chopping the Viper down. I kept the Eldar pilot's legs, but glued on the upper body and arms of a Raider pilot and head of a Reaver. (The back deck of the Raiders is where I drop a representative member of the embarked squad for battle-tracking)

More to come... Including a step-by-step for how I did my Venom conversions. And yes, Theambit, I will put in some more close-ups of the painted Raider

Here's the closer shots on the 70% Raider... Hopefully this is a good week for painting for me

That is a very different kind of paint scheme for DE, I have only ever seen the usual dark + neon highlights kind of schemes. I am curious to see what the last 30% is going to see it looking like.

Completely off topic, I love your signature

The dark with neon look (my FLGS manager calls it a "tron paintjob", he did it to his own Dark Eldar) is a very fast and forgiving style. I would have to guess that the speed of it is a big factor in its popularity. One of the WHFB players who picked up Dark Eldar as his introduction to WH40K is taking the time to do a Japanese-themed paint scheme.

My goal is for a visceral feel, with bone hulls, blood red sails, and just the look like this fleet of ships didn't arrive out of a nice neat webway portal like some foppish aristocratic Eldar seeking to establish arrogant dominance. Rather, it tore itself out of the flesh of reality and is here to disgorge its malicious contents upon some unsuspecting colony, bring the colonists back into the hell that hatefully spat the raiders out, and make them scream through eternity.

To me, dark grey/black hulls with feathery drybrushing and neon edging just doesn't convey that kind of bloody horror. It's personal aesthetics however. For some, the simple appearance of black ships with ghostly highlighting conveys the terror of the unknown well enough.
There's also the whole being sick of painting dark, cold colors on my Tau vehicles

The last 30% will be the controls, gems, tin bitz and bronze on those spikes, skull white highlighting on the skulls to make them more noticeable, and intentionally lightly lining the sail to make it look like distended muscle tissue stretched out.
I'm not 100% certain how I want to do the warrior and wych armor, though I am leaning towards a red-purple. Squad designating colors are currently templated to be the loin cloth, hair, and shockprow of their dedicated raider. I've got several different ideas I want to play with before I commit them to the models.

I'm open to suggestions for enhancing that gut-wrenching feel that is my goal.

I for one, welcome our new Eldar overlords. Lol.

j/k...

In any case, I love the simplicity of the paint scheme you have chosen, but also love the texture and character that it seems to carry as well. Perhaps some hints of rust or additional weathering? Blood spatters on the more ominous parts of the hull?

Of course, when I say all this, reavers (from Serenity) come to mind, and this may not at all be the direction you are looking for.

I am in complete agreement with Crunchy_Monk's suggestion of weathering the skimmers and the possibility of blood and perhaps even body parts. It would add to the grim look of the Dark Eldar, so good on you Crunchy_Monk for thinking of the Reavers...they are by far the best representation of a blood thirsty and sadistic race...perfect for the DE.

Otherwise, I love the pale look of the skimmers. It appears so sickly and decrepit. A few touch ups...if you so choose...would only further to enhance the look.

First: Thanks for the feedback and suggestions

The weathering and blood splatters will eventually come... For now, I've taken the sail's color up a bit, overbrushed and drybrushed the gunner's armor, drybrushed skull white onto the deck, and finished hitting the spiky stuff with tin bitz. I'll be doing several wash layers on the deck to get under the stylized grating to a nice bloody hue.

The rust effects on the chains and blades I'm using brass for, I just need to drybrush and edge it a little more and find a more forgiving light to take the pictures in. The glyph on the shock prow will be done with squad designating colors (once I determine the Trueborn's squad color), and edged with something red-like. I'll stay away from the additional body parts on the Raiders, as that sounds more like a Haemonculi Cult thing than a Wych Cult. However, I'm looking for a way to do some bloody hand-prints on the hull/rail. Current thinking is that I'll find a spare hand (with spread fingers) in my bitz box and just use it like a stamp.
I'm also planning on a darker (maybe something bloody) wash in the ribs behind the shock prow and along the bottom. The engines are also screaming for some acrylic lovin', and who am I to deny them that? All in all, not a bad week for painting for me, I'm just a slow painter




The skull white on the skulls makes them pop out against the tin bitz, while not making them steal the show from the bleached bone hull.


On this image, the brass line-work on the forward blade is more obvious

First, the bone and red is awesome I would actually almost do the armor of all your Dark Eldar in the same bone color, and then let the plumes, scarves, etc. be the color coding to distinguish squads and match them to Raiders.

My suggestion (and feel free to not use it) is actually to put more stowage on the Raiders. Yes, a raiding force travels fast and light, but if we look at historical Vikings (Hmm.. Dark Eldar as Vikings from the Webway...) you see more spears to throw, bows and arrows, spare shields, etc on the Raiders themselves. The Dark Eldar are going fast, but they know they're going into battle.

I'd put things like spare splinter weapons on the deck or against the masts, boarding pikes or hooks, some spare melee weapons, other bits of kit and wargear, perhaps some boxes, fuel drums, ammo crates, or grenades about to throw and drop on people. Nets and bolas, all kinds of things. Perhaps even a few cages with prisoners in them or wierd xenos species.

It looks a bit too... I dunno, not lived in to be a real raiding ship to me. Yes they stop at port, but they stop at port with LOOT. This might be their second or third stop on their way back after all... similar to more historical pirates of the Carribean and the like

Very true, it is a sparsely decorate ship with a distinct lack of loot in it. It's currently being built/painted for play purposes. What I do on display pieces is a lot more than what I put into playable ones.

Over in my Wild Hunt thread I've dropped some WIP of some of the pieces of the Parade Board I'm building.. That will show a lot more of display work as it gets updated.

That being said.. here's some shots of the 90% complete Raider...






I've got some custom pain token markers I'm developing from the old Dark Eldar Prisoner blister, and two Ravagers that I'm building to add in...
"Duke Sliscus's love of vertical attack vectors" ...It would appear the Duke and I have something in common

What I plan as left to do is bringing up the engines' paint to acheive a red glow effect, making the glyph on the prow leap out more, a few more layers of bleached bone and skull white drybrushing on the deck, a few more light layers of bronze on the blades and chains to make the highlighting more noticeable, and to paint their sigil on the sail.

I've been busy, but not dead.

The Khan's force (about 1850 of 2k pictured)


Since this picture, I finished up the last of the third Space Marine Bike squad and have started with the four additions that will bring it up to 2500.

Three Techmarines on bikes and a Chaplain on a bike. I must say, I am loving the finecast Techmarine, as it is allowing me to do some conversion work I could never pull off with the metal models. (pictures to come)


edit: When the Techmarine photo goes in, I will also do close ups on the company command squad on bikes and the weapons specialists from the bike squads.

Here we go, the promised Techmarine WIP and closer shots of the command squad:


That's a Terminator Thunderhammer cut, glued, puttied and fitted onto the artificer shoulderpiece of the finecast Techmarine. The other arm was cut off at the elbow and replaced with the forearm of a Space Marine bike rider. I also cut the positioning nub off of the left shoulder-join in order to rotate the shoulder/arm piece to where it can hold the handlebars of the bike.
The next step is taking my hobby saw and knife to the body itself. I plan on using the upper body and lower legs.


The Khan and his full command squad on bikes. Yes, those are Stormshields from the Assault Terminator box, with the Terminator fists cut off and the shields then glued to the biker forearms. They're still holding their handlebars.


Here's the Khan and his command squad's Apothecary.


Close up on Thunderhammer and Lightning Claw veterans. They traded their bolt pistols for melta weapons.

Today I pick up the last of the materials I need to finish their conversions and start painting them.
Comments, questions, critiques are welcome.

I am very interested in seeing what happens with the Techmarine!

You asked for it

Techmarine parts (pre-glue)

I literally cut apart the Techmarine in the Techmarine kit, trimmed off the hoses and connectors that hang down the inside of the legs, trimmed the feet slightly, and cut the legs above the knees to fit them onto a Space Marine biker upper thigh/hip (also cut apart to fit the finecast(tm) lower legs).

Parts checking:



Top-left: hammer and servo-harness core on upper body, legs fitted on bike, glued, allowed to get tacky, then removed from bike to allow a full dry.
Top-right: upper arms attached to servo-harness, holding off on lower arms until fit on bike tested.
Bottom: test-fit on bike






The only thing left for me to do is continue beefing up the armor on the upper thigh/hip section, then putty the upper torso to the legs and sculpt some new hoses and couplings for the (now seated) Techmarine.


Yes, that's two squads of firewarriors in the background waiting for some acrylic love.

Beautiful, I MUST get me one of those bad boys!

From the Lord of the Rings set:


The Terror of Arnor

On the fantasy battle side, I've been doing up an all-spider goblin list... And with the release of Storm of Magic and the fulcrum mishaps, I modeled "Gribly", shown here:


Specifically, he's the monster to replace the forest goblin shaman when a fulcrum mishap of '8' occurs.


edit: apologies if the size of the image is off. Photobucket sometimes takes a day to update image references to resized/cropped images. It should play nice shortly.